Homemade Pear Butter The Lazy Girl's Way

Most of my happiest times in the kitchen are when I'm making something completely from scratch. I love experiencing the farm to table connection--knowing where my food comes from and taking a few simple, whole food ingredients and transforming them into a dish that is as impressive as it is simple with my own hands right in my own kitchen. It's incredibly satisfying to me.

One farm to table connection that I enjoy tremendously is belonging to an organic co-op from which I receive a box of organic produce every other week. I recently accumulated quite a generous supply of pears since we've been getting either Barlett or Bosc pears in every box lately and no one in my family has been eating them. I don't know why that is--we like pears! Not our favorite, but we still like them. Anyway, faced with about a dozen overripe and slightly bruised pears in my refrigerator bin, I decided to make some pear butter with them. I found the perfect recipe at a wonderful new-to-me cooking, gardening and farming blog called Farmgirl Fare. I love this site and will be sure to visit it often. I encourage you to check it out, too--especially if you like growing and eating your own fruits and vegetables.

If you ever find yourself interested in making pear butter, I cannot recommend enough that you try Farmgirl Fare's method that she outlines in detail in her post Recipe: How To Make Really Easy Low Sugar Pear Butter in the Oven (with step-by-step photos). This is the best pear butter recipe EVER. It's so incredibly easy and wow does it taste amazing, too! The only caveat is that you have to have a food mill for this method. I don't have one, but borrowed my friend's. I think I'm going to ask Santa for one for myself.

Jars of Homemade Spiced Pear Butter

Here's my version of Farmgirl Fare's recipe and photos from my day spent making pear butter yesterday:

Pear Butter 
5 lbs. really ripe organic pears (I had Bartlett and Bosc) 
1/2 cup sugar 
4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice 
2 cinnamon sticks (or 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon) 
1 teaspoon whole cloves (or 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves).

Cut the pears into chunks. Don't even peel or core the pears. Perfect for lazy girls and boys.

Run pears through the food mill over a big bowl. Okay so you can't be lazy here. It's a bit of an arm workout, but honestly not so bad.

All that remains after running 5 lbs. of pears
through the food mill. 

5 lbs ripe pears yields approximately
8 cups of pear purée

Run pear purée through the food mill again for a smoother purée, if desired. I did this right over the baking dish in which I'm going to bake the pears.

Running the pear purée through the food mill again
to ensure a smooth pear butter.

Add sugar and lemon juice to pear purée and stir well.

Pour the pear mixture into a 13x9 glass or ceramic baking dish. Add cinnamon and cloves to the pear mixture.

Cinnamon sticks and whole cloves
added to pear mixture... ready for the oven.

Bake in a 300 F oven for 3-6 hours or until the pear mixture thickens to the consistency you like, stirring once in a while. You can be lazy that whole time if you want to!

The longer you bake the pear butter, the thicker and richer the flavor. I like mine thick like softened butter. The flavor is more intense and it spreads on bread just like butter, but so much healthier for you!

Finished pear butter.

Remove pear butter from oven and you're done!

You have a few different options for storing your pear butter:
1. Transfer the pear butter into clean glass jars with lids and store in your refrigerator for several weeks.

2. Transfer some of the pear butter into a clean glass jar to store in your refrigerator for several weeks and freeze the rest! I like to freeze foods in glass jars, but I know a lot of people are not comfortable freezing glass jars because of the potential for breakage if the jar falls out of the freezer. In that case, you can also use plastic containers or those plastic zip-top bags.

3. Spoon your pear butter into 4 oz. or half pint canning jars, leaving 1/4" head space at the top and processing in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Be sure to run a knife through the pear butter when you've spooned it into the jars to get rid of any air pockets before you process them in the water bath. This is the method I chose to do so that I could gift some pear butter to friends for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

And that's it! Sounds pretty easy, right? I hope you give it a try the next time you have some overripe pears on hand. Or maybe you'll let some pears get overripe just to make this delicious, low sugar pear butter. If you do, dont' forget to read through Farmgirl Fare's entire post on How To Make Really Easy Low Sugar Pear Butter in the Oven (with step-by-step photos).

Some serving suggestions for pear butter:
+spoon onto your morning oatmeal
+spread on bread or toast
+stir into plain yogurt
+spread on a cheese, ham or turkey sandwich
+spread on a cracker topped with a bit of brie or other favorite cheese
+any other suggestions? 

Do you like fruit butter? What's your favorite kind?

Do you ever can fruit or vegetables at home?

Other posts I've written on canning and home preserving:
Home Canning Tomatoes
Grape Plum Jam (refrigerator jam)
Putting By
{Super Easy} Golden Raspberry Jam 
Jam Session  (Soft Strawberry Jam)

 
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